The subject of this thesis is the relationship between eschatology and history in the Christian community for which Luke-Acts was written. Chapter 1 formulates the problem in terms of Luke's eschatology. It argues that Luke and his community thought of the End as 'near' and that Luke's historical perspective affected his eschatology. Luke-Acts represents a community that held a relevant eschatological hope and was aware of continuing history. This is the interpretive problem this thesis seeks to enlighten. The perspective to be used in approaching this problem is that of sociological analysis. Chapter 2 explores the use of sociological perspectives in New Testament study and the benefits to be achieved by the use of the sociology of knowledge. Chapter 3 is a sociological analysis of the community in terms of date, location, stratification, racial composition, boundaries, social institutions, and charismatic roles and functions. This material suggests that mission was an important community task. Chapter 4 establishes a sociology of mission for the community, investigating commitment as the mechanism that motivated community members to pursue mission, the importance of mission to the community, the motivation of converts, and the problems encountered in mission. Chapter 5 investigates the social functions of eschatology in the community and finds that it functioned in legitimating numerous aspects of the community's mission experience. Chapter 6 investigates the social functions of history in the community and finds that it functioned in legitimating various aspects of the community's mission experience. In the conclusion it is shown that history and eschatology were functionally related to one another in legitimating aspects of the community's mission experience. This functionality also provided a meaningful relationship in helping the community to make sense of its world. This further prepares us to try and understand these ideas theologically by placing them in a social context.

This study examines the changing patterns of authority both within and between the local Christian communities at the end of the second century and during the third. Amid the general tightening of Church discipline, the most significant development is the expansion and consolidation of a "monarchical" episcopate rather than the monepiseopate. A monarchical bishop is distinguished from one of the latter type by a greater control over the local congregation, a universal acceptance within his community of his position as chief teacher, having the last word on questions of orthodoxy, and the ability to act without the approval of his clergy and laity. The activities and writings of the chief Christian writers during the period under review are considered separately, and there is a section devoted to the relationships between the local Churches. The period commences as the Church begins to emerge from the crisis tfce variegated and largely heretical movement called Gnosticism inflicted upon her. Among the Gnostics, only the Valentinians and the Marcionites formed Churches, as the remainder were gathered (around their teachers) in little groups, usually compared to the philosophical schools, tut also having some similarities with the mystery religion groupings. The general aim was the acquisition of saving knowledge, and the movement was generally characterised by rigid internal divisions, a passionate subjectivity and objection to community discipline, and a belief in secret traditions. Eventually the orthodox communities rejected this entire authority pattern, although the process took longer in Alexandria, where a more refined philosophical Gnosticism exerted considerable influence on Clement, and to some extent on Origen. The organization of the Marcionites was roughly the same as that in the orthodox community at Rome around the middle of the second century, and was quickly bypassed and rejected.

I set out to learn something basic about architecture, something foundational on which to situate the conceptual and rhetorical exercises played within the studio. In settings both academic and professional I had been encouraged to reduce my study of architecture to a cerebral and retinal game of sorts played out via ever-increasingly seductive imagery. It seemed apparent that in order to think about architecture I should have been involved in an act of architecture. My intentions, albeit naïve, were to engage architecture on its own terms, through its own medium, to return to first principles, if there ever were any, and to acquire a form of embodied architectural knowledge inseparable from its material becoming. There was no amount of hypothesizing, theorizing, no amount of digital sophistication that could supplant the basic educational experience gained from involving myself with real materials, in a real place, with a fully engaged being. With this in mind I journeyed into Ontario’s North, with little more than a hammer and saw and a desire for experience, that most brutal of teachers. I would engage in a basic act of building as a method of acquiring a deeper understanding of the subject I had been studying for several years yet whose essence I felt I knew very little about. The resultant document, informed by traditions of the primitive hut, records a journey towards architectural embodiment; it resides as an argument for the reintroduction of embodied forms of learning into the education of the architect.

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The main objectives of this study were to identify the role that customary law and traditional leadership can play, without compromising their current positions or future recognition through legislation, in creating a better life for their constituents. The study analysed diverse issues such as legislative reform, the future role and functions of traditional leaders, training needs of traditional leaders, and the impact of a possible lack of commitment by national and provincial government on the training of traditional leaders to fulfill their functions within the ambit of the Constitution.

This thesis examines the question of how primitive states form. The first part of the thesis defines a state. I then analyse Hobbes�s Theory of the Commonwealth by Acquisition (TCA), expounded in Leviathan. I conclude that this theory fails as an answer to the question of how primitive states form as it suffers from at least five major flaws. I go on to explain, modify and correct Hobbes�s TCA through techniques that have been used in modern critiques of Hobbes�s Theory of the Commonwealth by Institution. The result is the strongest possible answer that Hobbes can give to the question of how primitive states form. I conclude that his attempt fails as even if the technical aspects of his theory can be fixed, the overall problem of empirical falsification occurs. I then put forward my own theory, based on the modified Hobbesian theory. The major innovation is the replacement of individuals with groups in the Hobbesian State of Nature. This move answers the problem of empirical falsification, at least initially. The theory also helps to explain several of the more technical problems with Hobbes�s theory. The resulting theory is a Hobbesian theory of primitive state formation. The next step in the thesis is to match the Hobbesian theory of primitive state formation to the empirical evidence of primitive state formation, represented by anthropology. I analyse the anthropological literature and put forward that at least one recent research program in anthropology matches my Hobbesian theory of primitive state formation. I conclude that Hobbesian theory, based on the TCA can be successfully modernised into a plausible answer to the question of how primitive states formed.

[Formulae and special characters in this field can only be approximated. See PDF version for accurate reproduction] In this thesis we investigate the properties of k-closures of certain finite permutation groups. Given a permutation group G on a finite set Ω, for k ≥ 1, the k-closure G(k) of G is the largest subgroup of Sym(Ω) with the same orbits as G on the set Ωk of k-tuples from Ω. The first problem in this thesis is to study the 3-closures of affine permutation groups. In 1992, Praeger and Saxl showed if G is a finite primitive group and k ≥ 2 then either G(k) and G have the same socle or (G(k),G) is known. In the case where the socle of G is an elementary abelian group, so that G is a primitive group of affine transformations of a finite vector space, the fact that G(k) has the same socle as G gives little information about the relative sizes of the two groups G and G(k). In this thesis we use Aschbacher’s Theorem for subgroups of finite general linear groups to show that, if G ≤ AGL(d, p) is an affine permutation group which is not 3-transitive, then for any point α ∈ Ω, Gα and (G(3) ∩ AGL(d, p))α lie in the same Aschbacher class. Our results rely on a detailed analysis of the 2-closures of subgroups of general linear groups acting on non-zero vectors and are independent of the finite simple group classification. In addition, modifying the work of Praeger and Saxl in [47], we are able to give an explicit list of affine primitive permutation groups G for which G(3) is not affine. The second research problem is to give a partial positive answer to the so-called Polycirculant Conjecture, which states that every transitive 2-closed permutation group contains a semiregular element, that is, a permutation whose cycles all have the same length. This would imply that every vertex-transitive graph has a semiregular automorphism. In this thesis we make substantial progress on the Polycirculant Conjecture by proving that every vertex-transitive, locally-quasiprimitive graph has a semiregular automorphism. The main ingredient of the proof is the determination of all biquasiprimitive permutation groups with no semiregular elements. Publications arising from this thesis are [17, 54].

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2010. / Title from first page of PDF file (viewed February 17, 2010). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 253-268).

Diss.--Munich. / Includes bibliographical references.

Habilitationsschrift -- Münster. / Bibliography: p. 369-373.